The Cube by Hannah, age 7

Long ago at the seaside lived a brown bear called Irina. Irina was bigger than a human daddy. She was a girl bear. She had big black beady eyes. She smelled like summer flowers and she was kind and pretty. The seaside smelt like salty sea water.

One day, Irina found a strange white cube. It made her feel brave and a bit more safer. Then she saw a letter from her friend, Tallulah. She was so excited that she died a high-pitched scream. “Aaaaahh!” The letter said:

Dear Irina

Please come to my house under the water but you need to swim. Come on 11th June.

Love Tallulah.

But Irina couldn’t swim so she decided to practise and practise and practise until the day came. When she found out that she had to swim she felt worried because there was no-one to teach her. When she got into the water she found out it was salty and when she tried to swim she did not like the water up her nose and found it was not easy to swim. The seaweed was really tickly on her feet. She thought that the wave would tip her over and she would drown!

When she was swimming towards the cave, a terrible, frightening storm happened. The waves were as high as mountains. The thunder was as loud as an explosion. The lightning was a ginormous flash. She got swept out to sea where she could barely see the beach.

She found out she needed special gear like an oxygen tank because otherwise she would never get there because she would have to keep going up and down. The cave was right down at the bottom of the sea.

Irina saw a shark. It started rising out of the sea. Irina was really frightened. The shark had a grey large fin on its head and shiny white teeth which were razor sharp. Her body started to rise from the water and suddenly the shark started to talk to Irina.

“Are you lost?” the shark said in a deep voice. “Your magical cube sends messages to people.”

But suddenly they heard a big splash. She dropped the cube. Irina felt worried.

“Oh no! I’ve lost the cube. Now I’ll never be able to find it.”

The shark said, “Come on, ride on my back. We’ll find it together.”

And then suddenly the sea started lighting up in rainbow colours.

“Look! Maybe it’s where the colours are the darkest!”

So they swam down to have a look. And then they found the cube nestling in some seaweed. The shark grabbed it.